1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to telecommunications and, in particular, to voice identification. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to controlling advertising output during a hold period.
2. Description of the Related Art
Telephone service has created communication channels worldwide, and those channels continue to expand with the advent of cellular and other wireless services. A person can simply take a telephone off-hook and dial a destination number or press a send button and be connected to a telephone line around the world.
Many companies provide telephone-based access to help staff, sales personnel, representatives, and automated menus via a call center. Where high telephone call traffic is typical in telephone access to a company""s representatives, a PBX system receives the call and distributes the call to an automatic call distributor (ACD), thus incorporating a hold function in the call center. ACDs are often employed to provide an even and systematic distribution of incoming calls to multiple representatives. In particular, ACDs typically provide incoming calls with a direct connection to an available representative until all representatives are busy. Then, calling parties are placed in a call queue, and selectively connected to a representative once a representative comes available.
Once in a hold queue, a caller may be provided with on hold service options. For example, a caller may be provided with the option of listening to music while on hold. The caller may then be prompted to select a type of music. The on hold system may subscribe to a selection of styles of music. A limitation of such music services is that typically the same couple of songs are played over and over again within a particular category of music. In addition, by providing music to callers on hold, companies lose valuable time with a captive audience that may be utilized to inform and educate.
Some companies utilize on hold time solely to broadcast announcements and advertising. Within a single call center, there may be multiple hold queues, where calls are distributed to hold queues according to the type of question or service needed. Broadcast announcements and advertising may be specified according to queue, but beyond such specification, each caller receives the same generic announcements.
Therefore, in view of foregoing, it would be advantageous to provide a method, system, and program for inserting announcements and advertising during an on hold program, such as music. In addition, it would be advantageous to allow third party advertisers to utilize hold spaces during on hold programs. Further, it would be advantageous to specify the advertising utilized during hold spaces of hold programs according to the context of each call, where the context indicates caller preferences and profile information.
In view of the foregoing, it is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an improved telecommunications system.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method, system and program for improved voice identification.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a method, system and program for controlling advertising output during on hold periods.
According to one aspect of the present invention, an advertisement is selected for output during a hold space a hold period of the call according to the context. Output of the advertisement during the hold space is controlled, wherein the advertisement is specified according to the context. The advertisement may include text messages, audio messages, video messages, for advertising a product or service or making an announcement.
In particular, a trusted telephone network preferably processes the call and initiates a context inference service to identify the context of a call. The context inference service may be initiated locally within the trusted telephone network or at a server located outside the trusted telephone network, with additional security applied for the communication channel.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a context for a call on hold is transferred to a third party advertiser. Responsive to detecting a hold space during an on hold service program for the call, the call is transferred to the third party advertiser, wherein the third party advertiser fills the hold space with an advertisement specified according to the context of the call.
All objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent in the following detailed written description.